Renowned filmmaker Jamshed Mehmood Raza alias “Jami” was sentenced to two years in prison in 2019 for defaming fellow director Sohail Javed.

The sessions court convicted Jami under Section 500 (defamation) of the Pakistan Penal Code and also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on him.

Jami’s lawyer confirmed that the filmmaker was taken into custody and transferred to Karachi Central Jail following the court’s decision.

It may be recalled that the case was related to a letter that Jami read out during the Lahoti Mela in 2019 and later posted on his Facebook page.

The letter was written by an unidentified female victim, accusing a well-known figure of sexual assault.

Although no one was named in the letter, nor did Jami mention anyone in his post.

However, Sohail Javed maintained that many people in the comments on Jami’s Facebook post assumed that the accusation was against him and Jami neither denied nor stopped this speculation through any explanation.

Jami took the stand in court that the letter was given to him by the organizers of the Lahoti Mela and he read it without looking at it.

However, the court held that Jami could neither produce the author of the letter nor produce any proof of contact with the organizers or any credible evidence to prove that he was not aware of the contents of the letter in advance.

The court convicted Jami on this basis, finding him guilty.